On a grey-skied, lightly rainy morning in the Autumn of 2016, I was taking the escalator down from the Inokashira Line in Shibuya, which runs above ground, to the Den-en-toshi Line subway. It's a common transfer, and I noticed those taking the same route as me further ahead on the crowded escalator were putting up their umbrellas for the short period in the drizzle between coverings over escalator and at subway entrance. The first stanza of Street Ecstasy occurred to me, and I worked through the ideas it contained for me over the following months to produce the piece below. A friend who I showed the draft to said the message it contains is simply "live", and I like that a lot. There are also some embellishments along the way that I feel make the journey worthwhile though, including a summary of Terence McKenna's stoned ape hypothesis that I'm particularly happy with. Also, the final point is serving me well during the cold of Tokyo's winter months this year.
Street Ecstasy: A Paean to Perseverance Take down your umbrella. The weather’s the only embrace of nature we can feel in this town. Become more comfortable in inclement climes, reminded of the time we were at one with Mother Earth. Our original birthright is profuse supply AND lack, pack communing AND self reliance, in equal measure. These days we’ve been trained to see one of each of these dichotomies as pain its opposite as pleasure. To take both together, to stow away whatever ultimately ineffectual umbrella it is that you’re protecting yourself, unrealisingly dividing, with, is to invite communion with something vitally more than human, to become a sometime lover of the capriciously passionate Pan. Try as you might in the midst of this numinous yet still, nevertheless, less than consensual union, just a casual mind-fuck for Puck, you can’t help but be swept back in time, and wide-eyed find yourself fleetingly identified with the first self-conscious troglodyte. She went outside to pee, awoken from dreams after orgy caused by psychedelic spores foraged earlier that day from atop the turds of ungulate herds. Now she stares upwards at a night of stars in wonder: “What are they?” “What am I that observes?” What are we blundering towards in out techno-logic-only, separating society, when all joy with any deeper meaning is really the feeling of being a part of, belonging within, a mind-bogglingly large work of art, each a song theme in the universe symphony? Could it be that all we need to do to reconnect with first ecstasy in the streets of the cities is to remove our shoes, or refuse the ceaseless food supply sometimes? Thereby stepping into recognition of ancient monkey situation, casting off conditioning, embracing the traditional pain of being an animal hanging on by teeth’s skin. Seeing clearly that we’re suspended, mid-air, from everything for which we care by a thin string, the weight-bearing ability of which is a constantly keening uncertainty. Be at ease with your difficulties - body’s aches and nature’s unpredictabilities (which includes other peoples’ vagaries too) - not for a religion’s theoretical cosmology reasons that’re often really another means of self-protection, but from an experientially rational practicality that states that seeking comfort alone is the path away from the deepest connectedness it’s possible for a lowly primate to know. So miss a meal, be too hot or cool, forgive a foolish imposition, feel love refusing to meet fruition, underrate precipitation, take on the seemingly impossible mission - forbear the barely bearable. For perhaps it’s fair to say, my fellow apes, that in fact the way to hell is paved with metaphorical umbrellas, raised. 9th January 2017
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